February 2007 Archive

I received this email today from Gene Oliver, of the RKO ALLRED5 movie theater in Pryor, Oklahoma. He’s responding to Sunday night’s Oscar diss of cineplexes by Jerry Seinfeld. (Said the comedian: “In movie theaters now, they’re trying to get you to pick up the garbage around your seat. I’m picking nothing up. I’m the one who threw it down. How many different jobs do I have to do?” Then Jerry accused movie theater owners: “You rip us off on overpriced crap.”) I… Read

Post-Oscars Paramount is going announcement crazy today. Guess it’s that studio’s way of over-compensating for Babel‘s Best Picture loss. (Chin up, guys: at least you got the An Inconvenient Truth documentary win.):
Newly crowned Oscar winner Marty Scorsese will join with Mick Jagger and direct The Long Play, a film set in the world of the music business spanning three decades. Project will re-team Scorsese with The Departed screenwriter Bill Monahan, also fresh from an… Read

Just remember, you heard it here first: I predict Jerry Seinfeld will be next year’s Oscar host, and he’ll have the gig for several years. His memorable appearance on the 79th Academy Awards was tantamount to an audition — not just to see if the show liked him, but to see if he liked the show. After all, with his Seinfeld gazillions, he certainly doesn’t have to impress anyone. He looked cool and comfortable onstage, as if he worked that gig all the time. For awhile now… Read

UPDATED:*According to news reports, ratings for the 2007 Oscars improved a little over last year’s telecast. An average of 39.9 million people watched the 79th annual Academy Awards on ABC last night. That’s an improvement of 1 million viewers over last year’s Oscar telecast. The show ran about 3 hours and 50 minutes — the longest Oscarcast since the 2002 show, which stretched over 4 hours. Despite the ratings bump over last season, it still fell a couple million viewers… Read

I heard Alan Horn’s name (Warner Bros.). And Brad Grey’s name (Paramount, along with John Lesher’s at Paramount Classics). But one merciful first of this Oscars broadcast was that hardly any lawyers or agents were thanked this time around. There’ll be hell to pay come Monday morning for that oversight, trust me. Agencies will raise their commissions to 20%. Lawyers to 10%. (Manicurists to 5%.) The first agent mention went from Little Miss Sunshine‘s screenwriter Michael… Read

There’s no great mystery as to why The Departed won Best Picture and Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was a terrific film. It made a lot of money so the public liked it enormously. It had classy actors and a crackling script. Marty Scorsese was the sentimental favorite going into this contest. And, well, a comedy never wins Best Picture. And Academy members either loved or hated Babel. Despite what the Oscars pundits tell you, this isn’t… Read

I’ll remember this 79th Academy Awards show as a mostly black-and-white amateur hour shot in the style of the 1950s. I feel compelled to ask whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is aware that the world now has color television? Where James Taylor singing Randy Newman’s song “Our Town” from Cars performed on a bare black stage with just a piano and a guitar. (At the very least, Sweet Baby James could have taken off his shirt and shown some middle-aged eye… Read

Erroll Morris’ interviews of the nominees kicks off the show. And it lays a huge egg. The package is too inside. And the TV viewing audience has no idea who most of these people are. When, oh when, is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences going to stop being so “insider” on their telecast. How, in the world does a quirky piece like this endear movies to the world audience? It doesn’t!
Standing are the 177 Oscar nominees scattered around Hollywood’s Kodak Theater… Read

Hey, weren’t the Oscars supposed to start early this year? That’s what the official Academy Awards website kept saying. That’s what the ads said. So basically, the public was lied to! With the show starting 30 minutes later than expected, it’s doubtful that people on the East Coast are going to stay up to see the end. S when people were predicting this would be the longest Oscarcast ever, they were inadvertently including this half-hour “bonus.” Lying to an audience is… Read

Joan Rivers is sounding sane, although someone has given Melissa a thingamajig to “illustrate” the Red Carpet activity. So, on your TV screen, all you see are white scrawl marks. Will Smith’s son, who starred with him in The Pursuit of Happyness, will be presenting tonight, Will tells Joan. Clearly Rivers is trying hard not to piss off the stars as they make their way down the line of microphones. After E! and after the TV Guide channel, where could she and Melissa go if… Read